I configured my app to show a Live Activity when an alarm rings using AlarmKit. However, if I dismiss the Live Activity by tapping somewhere other than the X button, and then long-press the Dynamic Island, a new Live Activity appears that is long but contains no information. Currently, the only way I can remove this empty Live Activity is to press the X button while the alarm is in the snooze state. Pressing the X button on the initial alarm does not remove it. Is there any way to prevent this behavior or properly handle / clean up this empty Live Activity?

Hi, We are the developers of Morning Call (https://morningcall.info), and we believe we may have identified an AlarmKit / system UI bug on iPhone. We can reproduce the same behavior not only in our app, but also in Apple’s official AlarmKit sample app, which strongly suggests this is a framework or system-level issue rather than an app-specific bug. Demonstration Video of producing zombie Live Activity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZdF3oc8dVI Related Thread https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/812006 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/817305 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/807335 Environment iPhone with Dynamic Island Alarm created using AlarmKit Device is unlocked when the alarm begins alerting Steps to reproduce Schedule an AlarmKit alarm. Wait for the alarm to alert while the device is unlocked. The alarm appears in Dynamic Island. Instead of tapping the intended stop or dismiss button, swipe the Dynamic Island presentation away. Expected result The alarm should be fully dismissed. The Live Activity should be removed. No empty UI should remain in Dynamic Island. Actual result The assigned AppIntent runs successfully. Our app code executes as expected. AlarmKit appears to stop the alarm correctly. However, an empty “zombie” Live Activity remains in Dynamic Island indefinitely. The user cannot clear it through normal interaction. Why this is a serious user-facing issue This is not just a cosmetic issue for us. From the user’s perspective, it looks like a Live Activity is permanently stuck in Dynamic Island. More importantly: Force-quitting the app does not remove it Deleting the app does not remove it In practice, many users conclude that our app has left a broken Live Activity running forever We receive repeated user complaints saying that the Live Activity “won’t go away” Because the remaining UI appears to be system-owned, users often do not realize that the only reliable recovery is to restart the phone. Most users do not discover that workaround on their own, so they instead assume the app is severely broken. Cases where the zombie state disappears Rebooting the phone Waiting for the next AlarmKit alert, then pressing the proper stop button on that alert Additional observations Inside our LiveActivityIntent, calling AlarmManager.shared.stop(id:) reports that the alarm has already been stopped by the system. We also tried inspecting Activity<AlarmAttributes<...>>.activities and calling end(..., dismissalPolicy: .immediate), but in this state no matching activity is exposed to the app. This suggests that the alarm itself has already been stopped, but the system-owned Live Activity UI is not being cleaned up correctly after the swipe-dismiss path. Why this does not appear to be an app logic issue The intent is invoked successfully. The alarm stop path is reached. The alarm is already considered stopped by the system. The remaining UI appears to be system-owned. The stuck UI persists even after our own cleanup logic has run. The stuck UI also survives app force-quit and app deletion.

Our watchOS App isn't opened when tapping on a Live Activity. Added the following to our Info.plist and still get the Open on iPhone option. <key>WKSupportsLiveActivityLaunchAttributeTypes</key> <array/> Is there something else we need to configure?

Our app is using the CLLocationManager to wake up the app near an iBeacon and then tries to connect to the accessory via bluetooth and UWB. For this to work in the background we need to create a Live Activity and show the user that the app is doing something. When the app is in the foreground or just recently got into the inactivity mode this works fine and we can use CoreBluetooth/NearbyInteraction even when the app then enters the background mode. But when the app is longer in the background creating a Live Activity via Activity.request() throws an ActivityAuthorizationError.visibility. According to the documentation the LiveActivityIntent is able to workaround this background restriction but I get the same exception when I create the LiveActivity from the perform() method. Is there another API to create Live Activities? Do I need to prepare the LiveActivityIntent somehow?

Hello, I’m working on an iOS app where we have integrated ActivityKit to support Live Activities. Our app currently supports iOS 16.x and above, and we do not have an Apple Watch app or watchOS support. However, we noticed that when a Live Activity starts on the iPhone, it automatically appears on the Apple Watch as well. Since our app is not designed for Apple Watch, we would like to prevent the Live Activity UI from appearing on the watch. My questions: Is there any way to disable or prevent Live Activities from showing on Apple Watch via code? Are there any configuration options in ActivityKit or Widget configuration that can restrict Live Activities to iPhone only? Our current setup: Minimum iOS version: 16.x Using ActivityKit for Live Activities No watchOS target in the app Any guidance or recommended approach would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I'm building out a live activity that has a button which is meant to update the content state of the Live Activity. It calls a LiveActivityIntent that runs in the app process. The push server starts my live activity and the buttons work just fine. I pass the push token back to the server for further updates and when the next update is pushed by the server the buttons no longer work. With the debugger I'm able to verify the app intent code runs and passes the updated state to the activity. However the activity never updates or re-renders. There are no logs in Xcode or Console.app that indicates what the issue could be or that the update is ignored. I have also tried adding the frequent updates key to my plist with no change. I'm updating the live activity in the LiveActivityIntent like this: public func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { let activities = Activity<WidgetExtensionAttributes>.activities for activity in activities { let currentState = activity.content.state let currentIndex = currentState.pageIndex ?? 0 let maxIndex = max(0, currentState.items.count - 1) let newIndex: Int if forward { newIndex = min(currentIndex + 1, maxIndex) } else { newIndex = max(currentIndex - 1, 0) } var newState = currentState newState.pageIndex = newIndex await activity.update( ActivityContent( state: newState, staleDate: nil ), alertConfiguration: nil, timestamp: Date() ) } return .result() } To sum up: Push to start -> tap button on activity -> All good! Push to start -> push update -> tap button -> No good...

I have a live activity, that works fine when the Lock Screen showing, but as soon as it "sleeps" dims down for always on display, everything in the widget disappears and an Activity Indicator(spinner), displays in its place, but non-animating.

The APP was not awakened by system after start a liveactivity and the liveactivity has showed on lock screen.so the updatetoken wont send to our inner server and the liveactivity can not update,often like this,but sometimes it can work. it makes me confuse,and i don't know how should i can do,because the liveactivity like a black box,i can not analyse the data link.for example ,inner server send a start liveactivity,but it can not accept a updatetoken unless the user lanuch APP. i hope the liveactivity can start and update on background. And i have developed it as described in the document. Hope to get your help，thank you very much.

Hi everyone, I’m implementing Live Activities in my iOS app and encountering an issue when starting a Live Activity via an APNS push. The Live Activity card appears on the Lock Screen / Dynamic Island for a moment, then immediately disappears. In the console, I see the following error: Content load failed: unable to find or unarchive file for key: [com.meituan.imeituan-beta::com.meituan.imeituan-beta.liveactivity:Attributes type: SAKUniversalReminderAttributes:6DBCC2DC-E613-48F5-B97F-3EF72AA0877B]:[w:fix-374.00-h:dyn-64.00-160.00-cr:23.5-s:1.0.fam:medium]. The session may still produce one shortly. Error: Using url file:///private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/PluginKitPlugin/04F7B437-3C41-4823-8559-42E18F82B283/SystemData/com.apple.chrono/activities/6DBCC2DC-E613-48F5-B97F-3EF72AA0877B-w:fix-374.00-h:dyn-64.00-160.00-cr:23.5-s:1.0.fam:medium.activity-archive ... Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4 "文件“6DBCC2DC-E613-48F5-B97F-3EF72AA0877B-w/fix-374.00-h/dyn-64.00-160.00-cr/23.5-s/1.0.fam/medium.activity-archive”不存在。" UserInfo={NSFilePath=/private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/PluginKitPlugin/04F7B437-3C41-4823-8559-42E18F82B283/SystemData/com.apple.chrono/activities/6DBCC2DC-E613-48F5-B97F-3EF72AA0877B-w:fix-374.00-h:dyn-64.00-160.00-cr:23.5-s:1.0.fam:medium.activity-archive, NSUnderlyingError=0x712b56820 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=2 "No such file or directory"}<…> The Live Activity is started by sending an APNS payload with the necessary content-state and attributes. I’ve verified that the attributes and content state types match the ones defined in the app, and the app is built with the correct entitlements.This happens on my iPhone 17 Pro device. Has anyone encountered a similar issue? Could it be related to the archive file not being written correctly by the system, or perhaps a mismatch in the activity attributes? Any guidance on debugging or resolving this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I have a Live Activity on iOS. Love it. However, that Live Activity via remote hosting (I'm not building for other targets) shows the Live Activity on watchOS, macOS and CarPlay. disfavoredLocations are for widgets, but I don't appear to have a method to limit or provide exclusive locations the live activity should appear.

I am working on a Live Activity widget. In it, I want some of the elements to open different deeplink URLs. I have found that assigning multiple widgetURL doesn't work, only one of the URLs gets opened no matter where you tap. I also found that Buttons don't seem to do anything, tapping them actually just open my app as if I just tapped a naked Live Activity. I have found that really only Link elements work if I want to open different URLs upon tapping different elements. And Links are cool and fine, but I am seeing that on tap, my elements become tinted... As in, there is a highlighted state, and it makes the elements inside blue. I have tried to use button style API on a link, but it didn't work. How can I disable the highlighted state for a Link element in a live activity widget?

How to eliminate this spacing？

Hi, I am trying to understand if I am able to get bluetooth scanning for advertisements (no service UUID) when the app is moved into the background and the screen goes to sleep. I am using swift on ios26.2 with a bluetooth class that uses the standard centralManager.scanForPeripherals to listen for particular Beacons. Testing on a real iPhone 15 this works fine whilst in the foreground, and also when on the lock screen. I am trying to get this to continue working in the background when the black screen sleep mode is on. I have the bluetooth 'Uses Bluetooth LE accessories' in the background modes (as well as Audio, Airplay..) and the necessary Bluetooth peripheral usage description, bluetooth always usage descriptions in info.plist. I launch a LiveActivity whilst the app is in the foreground and bluetooth has started scanning. From my understanding of core bluetooth with ios26 the LiveActivity should allow the scan to continue (without service UUIds and aggressive throttling) whilst the app is in the background. Well this seems to work fine.. if I press the side button the phone goes to the Lock Screen, and whilst on the Lock Screen the bluetooth is scanning fine and receiving beacon data. Similarly if the app is sent to the background behind a different foreground app it also works. As soon as the screen goes to sleep however (after only a few seconds of inactivity on the Lock Screen) then all bluetooth scanning stops. If I click back on the screen and bring the Lock Screen up, then scanning resumes again. Now is it possible to continue the scanning whilst the phone is in sleep mode (i.e. black screen)? Are there any additional acceptable steps to make the bluetooth scanning continue when the screen has gone to sleep. Or is it part of the design with core bluetooth that the 'continues in the background' feature only applies to the lock screen and when other active apps are brought to the foreground on an open phone. I want to understand the limitations of what can be achieved so I am not chasing unachievable objectives. Thanks

Desired Behavior I want the app to be able to handle multiple Push-to-Start notifications even when it is completely terminated. Each Live Activity should: Be successfully displayed upon receiving a Push-to-Start notification. Trigger background tasks to send its update token to the server, regardless of the time interval between notifications. Problem I am facing an issue with iOS Live Activities when using Push-to-Start notifications to trigger Live Activities in an app that has been completely terminated. Here’s the detailed scenario: When the app is completely terminated and I send the first Push-to-Start notification: The Live Activity is successfully displayed. didFinishLaunchingWithOptions` is triggered, and background tasks execute correctly, including sending the update token to the server. When I send consecutive Push-to-Start notifications in quick succession (e.g., within a few seconds or minutes): Both notifications successfully display their respective Live Activities. Background tasks are executed correctly for both notifications. However, when there is a longer interval (e.g., 10 minutes) between two Push-to-Start notifications: The first notification works perfectly—it displays the Live Activity, triggers didFinishLaunchingWithOptions, and executes background tasks. The second notification successfully displays the Live Activity but fails to execute any background tasks, such as sending the update token to the server. My HypothesisI suspect that iOS might impose a restriction where background runtime for Push-to-Start notifications can only be granted once within a certain time frame after the app has been terminated. Any insights into why this issue might be occurring or how to ensure consistent background task execution for multiple Push-to-Start notifications would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, we start and update Live Activities with ActivityKit push notifications in our app, but want to do so only if the user is logged in. Therefore we only send the pushToStartToken to the server when a user logs in (or when the token changed and the user is still logged in.) When the user logs out, we remove that start token from our server so that no LA can be started while the app is in the logged out state. This means that the logout isn't happening immediately but is waiting for that deletion request to succeed. This could also fail and lead to the use rnot being able to log out, e.g. if the user has no internet access. If that deletion request would be fire and forget, we would end up in a state where the server still has the token and might start LAs without any user being logged in. The token flow for Remote Push Notifications is different, on the other hand: requesting a token asynchronously via UIApplication.shared.registerForRemoteNotifications() but invalidating it synchronously (at least from the app's perspective) on logout via UIApplication.shared.unregisterForRemoteNotifications(), which makes it way easier for us to make sure the app does not get notifications when no user is logged in. We're wondering if we're just holding it wrong or if our way of handling the LA token deletion is indeed the intended one?

Hey! I'm working on enabling remotely started live activities. I'm running into 2 crashes: Upon initializing ActivityAuthorizationInfo Upon calling Activity<...>.activities array Both stack traces look like this: 0 libsystem_kernel.dylib +0xce0 _mach_msg2_trap 1 libsystem_kernel.dylib +0x4398 _mach_msg2_internal 2 libsystem_kernel.dylib +0x42b4 _mach_msg_overwrite 3 libsystem_kernel.dylib +0x40fc _mach_msg 4 libdispatch.dylib +0x1cc04 __dispatch_mach_send_and_wait_for_reply 5 libdispatch.dylib +0x1cfa4 _dispatch_mach_send_with_result_and_wait_for_reply 6 libxpc.dylib +0x107ec _xpc_connection_send_message_with_reply_sync 7 BoardServices +0xaea8 -[BSXPCServiceConnectionMessage _sendWithMode:] 8 BoardServices +0x17938 -[BSXPCServiceConnectionMessage sendSynchronouslyWithError:] 9 BoardServices +0xeef0 ___71+[BSXPCServiceConnectionProxy createImplementationOfProtocol:forClass:]_block_invoke They happen to a limited number of users, but not insignificant. Most are on iOS 18.6.2 and iOS 26.1, but there are others in the mix. I don't have a repro myself. It looks like the main thread gets blocked after we receive no response from these ActivityKit APIs. Both of these are called inside application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:. For ActivityAuthorizationInfo, we need the app to communicate with the server whether the user has live activities enabled; hence, calling this object's init as early as possible in the app. For activities array, I'd like to do some logging whenever the live activity is started or ended (for example, if activities array no longer contains any activities, we can log the activity as dismissed). For this logging to happen, as far as I understand, it has to happen inside didFinishLaunchingWithOptions since this is the only method being called upon the terminated app receiving background runtime when the live activity starts/ends remotely. After some research, one potential reason is ActivityKit APIs are just not ready to return values via xpc connection at app startup, so moving these methods to applicationDidBecomeActive could resolve the problem. That's fine for ActivityAuthorizationInfo init, but for accessing activities, there is no other place in the lifecycle to see if an activity has been dismissed (especially in the scenario where app is terminated, so we get only 30 seconds ish of background runtime). Curious if anyone has run into this or has any insights into ActivityKit API behavior.

I'm specifically focused on Live Activity, but I think this is somewhat a general question. The app could get a few callbacks when: There's a new payload (start, update, end) There's a new token (start, update) There's some other lifecycle event (stale, dismissed) Assuming that the user didn't force kill the app, would the app get launched in all these scenarios? When OS launches the app for a reason, should we wrap our tasks with beginBackgroundTask or that's unnecessary if we're expecting our tasks to finish within 30 seconds? Or the OS may sometimes be under stress and give you far less time (example 3 seconds) and if you're in slow internet, then adding beginBackgroundTask may actually come in handy?

I’m implementing a Live Activity that shows some text and a button. When the user taps the button, I want to open the host app. What I’ve done so far: Implemented a LiveActivityIntent to handle the button tap. The intent is triggered successfully. However, the app does not open by using deep link/universal app link. From what I can tell, LiveActivityIntent seems limited to system/background execution and doesn’t bring the app to the foreground. Questions: Is it possible for a LiveActivityIntent to open the app? Is this behavior a documented/intentional limitation? If not supported, is using a Universal Link or deep link the recommended solution for opening the app from a Live Activity button? Any official clarification or recommended best practice would be helpful.

(I truly appreciate all the responses you all have written for me :bow: ) I was under the assumption that for Live Activity, in order for you to be able to update the Activity, you need an update token. And for the OS to issue you the update token, user must hit the "Allow" from the lock screen. However based on these screenshots it seems that you don't need to hit "Allow" to be able to update the Live Activity. Live Activity was updated — even without the user hitting "Allow" So now I'm wondering if: Is hitting Allow required for the update token to get issued? Or that assumption is incorrect? In our tests (when connected to Proxyman, the OS emits the update token after user hits "Allow" / "Always Allow") If you don't hit allow, are there alternate ways to update the Live Activity without having the update token? I'm guessing you could set a short stale time and then when the OS launches the app in the background you query the server and then update the Live Activity. Is that a worthy approach? I also noticed that the "The Philly Inquirer" App has 'Background App Refresh" enabled, but this happened in 2 minutes. In our architecture assessments, after reviewing Apple's docs on 'Background Processing", we didn't think of it as a viable option, because it can't guarantee if the OS is given time in the next 2 minutes or 10 hours later when the phone is getting charged again. Are any of these workarounds viable or are there alternate approaches? Our requirement is: be able to use Live Activity between 2-72hrs after app install. (I mention this because perhaps Apple may impost some restrictions for new installs) be able to update an active Live Activity within 1-2 minutes after it has began.

Hi, We design a Live Activity for our app.We find that in iOS26 system, the widget can not display the correct system display model(Light mode or dark mode), always display with dark mode. When our app run in other system ,such as iOS 17, iOS18 ，it work fine. I find other developer had post a topic three month ago , but it seems there is not any new response about the feedback. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/799684?answerId=857377022#857377022 Anyone have idea? Thanks . Below is my code template: struct BroadcastLiveActivityBackgroundView: View { @Environment(\.colorScheme) var colorScheme: ColorScheme var body:some View { LinearGradient( stops: [ Gradient.Stop(color: LiveActivityColor.backgroundColors(self.colorScheme).last!, location: 0.00), Gradient.Stop(color: LiveActivityColor.backgroundColors(self.colorScheme).first!, location: 1.00), ], startPoint: UnitPoint(x: 1, y: 0), endPoint: UnitPoint(x: 0.82, y: 1.11) ) } }